Quo vadis?

After the disastrous but salt unsurprising results from the Irish referendum on protecting the unborn (the answer was apparently "No."), my mind keeps turning to the question of where we go from here. Wiser heads than mine have answers, if not matching orders, e.g., evangelize like hobbits would. Or by domestic church. The practical reality though cannot exclude other means: in schools and in parishes.

Be deaf therefore when anyone preaches to you without mentioning Jesus Christ

St Ignatius of Antioch's letter to the Trallians;

  Be deaf therefore when anyone preaches to you without mentioning Jesus Christ, who was of the family of David, who was truly born of Mary, who truly ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth; who was also truly raised from the dead, when his Father raised him up — just as his Father will raise us up, believers in Christ Jesus without whom we have no true life.

  Flee from these preachers, these wicked offshoots that bear deadly fruit, one taste of which is fatal. These have not been planted by the Father; if they had been, they would grow as branches of the Cross and their fruit would be incorruptible. 

How should Christians behave under hostile secular attack?

One thing is certain: it isn't hiding under the bed. Why not? Simple: because that does the opposite of evangelization, and evangelization is our mission.

As I heard Bishop Robert Barron once explain, when Jesus proclaimed to St. Peter that he was building his Church, "the gates of Hades will not prevail against it", gates don't march -- the Church does. Christians do. We do. In all charity, of course, but never compromising the Truth.

The new eMANgelization

Catholic Report says Catholic men are keen for priests to lead and challenge them.

Definitely resonates with this man.

Leave the quiet of contemplation and witness!

From the Office of Readings on the feast of St. Catherine of Siena:
Now that you are endowed with the gift of my Spirit, cleansed from all stain by the outpouring of my blood, leave the quiet of contemplation and resolutely take up the work of witnessing to my truth, alleluia.

It should not shock me that whatever charisms we receive, gifts of the Holy Spirit, are ordered towards service to others. I actually heard this for the first time at a Called and Gifted workshop run by Sherry Weddell of the Catherine of Siena Institute. But Jesus indeed said "you are my witnesses," his martyrs, and so all his baptized should be. And what a different world we might have were we so faithful in this commission to evangelize!

Preach from the Rooftops: Evangelium Vitae at Twenty

Preach from the Rooftops: Evangelium Vitae at Twenty

So how do we preach the truth to a world that can be vehement in denying that there is such a thing as Truth? I remember reading a book years ago about beings who started out perfect until they stumbled into this paradox of lying. Why a paradox? Because they use words which, while intended to convey only truth, can be bent to convey lies instead. But I think today's challenge to evangelization is not only this paradox caused by relativism. Not only can people repulse the truth by clinging to the notion that objective truth does not exist -- itself a paradoxical assertion -- but we've been fed too much from the font of feelings. It's akin to relativism, but it is its own form of poison: one's emotional instincts are equal or superior to one's reason. While I think we do benefit from being honest with ourselves as far as how we feel about things, it is the gravest mistake to let emotions take the wheel.

How do we evangelize such a crowd? I think we can simply take it on faith that all we can do is to proclaim in season and out of season, and let the seeds fall where they may, all the while building families and friendships and communities in all charity and hope. It's the formula that the Apostles left us with and which the Church had applied across the generations all over the world. It works or (sometimes) it doesn't. A wise man somewhere wrote that our mission is to be faithful, not effective. I have the power, by God's grace, to be faithful. The effectiveness is largely out of my hands anyway.

Extraordinary in the Ordinary

Today's Gospel reading (Jn 1:35-42) shows how the ordinary can become an encounter with Jesus.

As John stood with two of his disciples, Jesus passed, and John stared hard at him and said, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God.’ Hearing this, the two disciples followed Jesus. Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, ‘What do you want?’ They answered, ‘Rabbi,’ – which means Teacher –’where do you live?’ ‘Come and see’ he replied; so they went and saw where he lived, and stayed with him the rest of that day.   One of these two who became followers of Jesus after hearing what John had said was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. Early next morning, Andrew met his brother and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ – which means the Christ – and he took Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked hard at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John; you are to be called Cephas’ – meaning Rock.

John marks this passage with a clue: John stared hard at Jesus in the first verse, then Jesus "looked hard" at Simon in the last, with the same Greek ἐμβλέψας on both. In this passage, John introduces his disciple Andrew on to Jesus, and Andrew in turn introduces his brother Simon to Jesus. Simon not only becomes a disciple of Jesus, but is given another name, Rock.
  May I also turn the most ordinary scenes of my daily life, at home or at work, into something extraordinary and sanctified!
  One of the first lessons I learned from Opus Dei, when I attended their study center back in college, was how our ordinary activities can be sanctified as we do them extraordinarily well, prayerfully -- I'm paraphrasing the various ways I'd heard or read about this idea. This, of course, comes from St. Josemaria Escriva, who was influenced, I'd read, by the writings of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Also, just by googling, I found out that Prof. Scott Hahn, one of my favorite Christian writers, has written a book on his road to Opus Dei: Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace: My Spiritual Journey in Opus Dei. Those are three witnesses whose writings I can recommend, although I have not yet read any book by St. Thérèse, only a reflection on her witness by Pope Benedict XVI.
Photo source: http://05varvara.wordpress.com.

Subsidiarity in laboring for the harvest?

This article on solidarity and subsidiarity was an eye-opener for me. It explains something that I only had a rudimentary understanding of, and a fuzzy hunch about. It got me thinking about my role as father of a household, and what mistakes I have been making. While blogging is good for evangelization (assuming you did it well), as is joining in discussion forums, I was absenting myself from evangelizing my own family. Not that all bloggers do that: I'm sure the most successful Catholic bloggers out there are wiser than me in attending to home before attending to the blogosphere.
    So here I stand corrected, in prayer and spiritual reading. It does not excuse me from preaching the Good News at every opportunity that God presents me with. And so I continue to pray and to study, first to my family, and then to others. Perhaps my parish next, and then my workplace (prudently; it's a highly secularized institution and culture now). But lest I forget St. Francis who taught "Let all the brothers, however, preach by their deeds." But not by deed only, I think: "and they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it." (Mk 16:15-20). What signs? There are the obviously miraculous ones, e.g., "cast out devils .. gift of tongues; pick up snakes .. be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; lay their hands on the sick who will recover." But there are also the changed lives, turned around and over to God, incredibly filled with peace and joy previously unknown.
    If only my family would notice. :-P

Pope: Church Down Under Needs to Evangelize All Australians | Daily News | NCRegister.com

Got our marching orders!

Good words from Pope Benedict XVI

His final address to German Catholics highlights what the world needs so badly to see with the eyes of faith, that is, that if we truly want to save the world as our Christian mission requires, we must continue to set ourselves apart, and invite the world to be similarly consecrated, to God. Many would see this as an opportunity to call down the Church hierarchy whom they see as being embroiled in power and privilege. In their "them-and-us" mentality, they may well be missing the point that the challenge to be in the world but not of it is one for the entire Church, both laity and the hierarchy. Sadly, they may be missing the fact that the laity far outnumber the clergy, and the levels of power and privilege they wield in the world are far greater than that of the hierarchy. In the way that evangelization may proceed in the world, as leaven, we in the laity have fantastic opportunities that the clergy have no access to.

What will we do about it?

The Three Temptations of Facebook

.. and, if I may suggest, blogging. ;-)

What every Catholic can learn from Steve Jobs

.. according to Eric Sammons, is to focus the benefits in sharing their faith. This is almost a note-to-self for me because I can get carried away by what's under the hood. Sometimes I can't help myself; the details provide so much insight and can be absolutely amazing. But .. it's about evangelizing, so it's not about what excites me, but what might excite the audience.

Pope Benedict XVI's recent Christmas messages

On Christmas eve, the Holy Father gave a special address to the UK where he said,

  Our thoughts turn back to a moment in history when God's chosen people, the children of Israel, were living in intense expectation.
  They were waiting for the Messiah that God had promised to send and they pictured him as a great leader who would rescue them from foreign domination and restore their freedom.
  God is always faithful to his promises, but he often surprises us in the way he fulfils them.

Full audio and transcription available courtesy of BBC news.

He also gave a Christmas message to Rome and the universal Church, and he began with these words:

  Dear brothers and sisters listening to me here in Rome and throughout the world, I joyfully proclaim the message of Christmas: God became man; he came to dwell among us. God is not distant: he is “Emmanuel”, God-with-us. He is no stranger: he has a face, the face of Jesus.

Read more at The Telegraph

It is amusing what happened when I googled for 'christmas message, pope', where I found these headlines and subtitles from various media sources:

• Chinese government publication lambasts pope for Christmas remarks..
• Pope condemns 'oppressors' in Christmas message..
• Pope's Christmas message admonishes China..
• Pope urges tolerance in Christmas message..

and so on. Could it be that this is how this went right past many people? How sad, to miss the core of his message for Christmas: the Word became flesh (he repeats that four times).

He ends his address by saying, "Dear brothers and sisters, “the Word became flesh”; he came to dwell among us; he is Emmanuel, the God who became close to us. Together let us contemplate this great mystery of love; let our hearts be filled with the light which shines in the stable of Bethlehem! To everyone, a Merry Christmas!" May it be that this message planted seeds in all who read it in full.

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Catholic Bloggers Ignoring the Pope's "Fundamental Priority"?

From the Sacred Page: I would paraphrase it as "don't forget Domini in the (blogged) verbum. In other words, read Verbum Domini (and I haven't yet).

Update: Five noteworthy points from the exhortation, provided by The New Theological Movement.

Are Catholics Supposed to be Evangelical?

In the podcast episode of Catholic Answers Live that I heard today, a man called up asking out of curiosity if it was Catholic practice to evangelize at all. He framed his question by talking about his experience growing up in a Catholic community where nobody ever invited him to consider Catholicism or (apparently) any Catholic event where he might hear about the Catholic faith.

That says it all, doesn't it? And yet we do know (perhaps vaguely) that Pope John Paul II does mention the "new evangelization" many times in his pontificate (start here). When you think about it, we are told after each Mass to "go to love and serve the Lord", and of course, we all know what the Lord said about evangelization.

Er.. that's awkward. That I have to say "when you think about it" means that it isn't quite so obvious. Jimmy Akin's reply to that question above was that evangelization has not been emphasized much in the Catholic Church in America, but it seems to be preached actively in parts of Africa. I don't remember many exhortations to evangelize during homilies when I was growing up in the Philippines. I don't hear them so much here in Melbourne either. Perhaps it's assumed to be a well-known exhortation to all Catholics anyway? Perhaps there is this expectation that Catholic schools will "take care of that sort of thing"? Hmm.. on second thought, schools will probably worry about political correctness, tolerance, plurality, inclusiveness, etc. What about parents? Hey! I'm a parent! What about me? When am I going to get off my bum and teach my children to evangelize?

Hmm.. I'll probably need to read this. And Redemptoris Missio. And this from Pope Benedict XVI. And Evangelii Nuntiandi. and .. Maybe there's a reason why this hasn't taken off so easy. BUT we have to start somewhere. Right. My kids!

Impose nothing, yet propose ceaselessly

I like this admonishment, which comes from the Holy Father's address in Portugal:

We impose nothing, yet we propose ceaselessly, as Peter recommends in one of his Letters: “In your hearts, reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defence to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15)

When one has found the greatest of treasures, and not only is it sufficient to share with absolutely everyone, but it is completely logical to do so, we must do no less: propose ceaselessly, because what we have fills us with joy, and we want others to share this joy from the fount of all joy. It is a much better attitude than "live and let die", or even to "live and let live". Better to live and help live, for in Christ alone will our hearts find rest.

[Hat tip to Whispers in the Loggia, which posts the entire homily.

To Witness or Not?

Of course, and this, I think is the point that should not be eclipsed in discussions like this one, which questions the language in paragraph 841 of the Catechism concerning other monotheist religions, i.e., the Muslims. I have some comments in that discussion, which I might rewrite into a separate blog post here .. when time allows. This year is proving to be a busy one for me! Anyway, the original topic in that above link should pique some interest: "Roman Catholicism: The True Church or a Terrible Cult?" The cheeky answer is "both!", using the traditional and benign meanings of the words "cult" and "terrible", of course.

Sower and Seed, and the Soil

Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio has an insightful essay about the parable of the sower and the seed.

Fr. Jerome Magat has his own insightful angle about being fertile soil.

Following and preaching Christ

How does one who is not a professional preacher preach Christ? This blog is certainly not enough, for only a handful actually visit, among whom are people who need no preaching from me. But indeed, preaching in and out of season is for all of us. Societies who publicly revel in "diversity" are no less in need of preaching, as Papa Benedict challenges us:

But does this desire for dialogue and collaboration at the same time mean, perhaps, that we can no longer transmit the message of Jesus Christ, no longer propose to men and to the world this call and the hope that is derived from it? Those who have recognized a great truth, those who have found a great joy must transmit it; they simply cannot keep it for themselves. Gifts so great are never intended for just one person.

In this postmodern world, what is one to do? Plan A for me was as I had been taught at St. Josemaria Escriva's school (so to speak): in my ordinary work, lived extraordinarily with Christ at its center. Plan B was presenting my couple friends with subscriptions to The Majellan. But said subscriptions have lapsed and, after two years, my friends are not interested in renewing them. Indeed, one told me they have moved away from religion to spirituality. Is the Christian faith not both? The idea that my friends consider me to be a backward, prudish and perhaps mindless fundamentalist has dawned upon me and it is not a pleasant thought. It is also an altogether tragic affair, I think, that my couple friends who are raising young children, are not quite interested in a magazine that has got "Champion of the Family" as its logo.

Ah well. Plan A may not be feasible since they cannot taste and see the joy and hope that I see in my Catholic faith, and my life is not visible to them (we meet infrequently). But.. there's always prayer, and that is never a last, inferior recourse. St. Gerard Majella, pray for us! O Holy Family of Nazareth, come to the assistance of all families today!